Mental Health & Resilience
Leadership Development
Physical Wellbeing
Workplace CultureBuild a workplace wellbeing strategy based on what your people actually need
Identify what your organisation needs before delivering a wellbeing program.
Workplace wellbeing efforts often stall from lack of clarity. Activities are booked in response to pressures such as burnout, WHS audits, or engagement survey results, without a clear understanding of workforce needs or how the pieces fit together.
A custom workplace wellbeing strategy is a documented, evidence-informed plan that assesses workforce needs, prioritises wellbeing risks and opportunities, and sets out the programs, leadership actions, measures and implementation steps required to meet them. It replaces reactive activity with a structured plan aligned with organisational goals and aimed at measurable outcomes.
Holistic Services Group has designed and implemented workplace wellbeing strategies for Australian organisations since 2003. We bring 20+ years of delivery experience to every engagement, drawing on two proprietary wellbeing frameworks and a national network of specialist facilitators across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and regional Australia, with delivery also available in New Zealand and across Asia-Pacific.
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This strategy is best suited to organisations that:
- Are starting or rebuilding their workplace wellbeing approach and want a stronger foundation
- Need a structured, documented response to psychosocial hazard obligations under amended WHS Regulations
- Have run wellbeing activities but can’t point to lasting change in engagement, absenteeism or culture
- Support distributed, hybrid or multi-site workforces that existing programs aren’t reaching effectively
- Need a credible business case and framework to secure senior-stakeholder support for sustained investment
- Want one coordinated approach across massage, mental health, ergonomics and leadership, rather than separate vendors
Why a strategic approach matters
Reactive, fragmented wellbeing activity rarely shifts the indicators that matter — and the stakes are now both financial and legal. For the HR, People & Culture and WHS leaders responsible, an undocumented approach leaves the organisation exposed on cost, culture and compliance.
- Mental health claims are rising: mental health conditions now account for 12% of all serious workers’ compensation claims in Australia, up from 6.5% a decade ago, according to Safe Work Australia’s Key Work Health and Safety Statistics 2025.
- Psychosocial risk is now regulated: since 1 April 2023, employers must proactively identify, assess and control psychosocial hazards using the same hierarchy of controls applied to physical hazards — awareness training, policies and EAPs alone do not meet the obligation, per Safe Work Australia’s Model Code of Practice: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work.
- The economic cost runs to billions: mental ill-health and suicide cost Australia an estimated $200–$220 billion per year, according to the Productivity Commission’s Mental Health Inquiry Report (2020).
A documented wellbeing strategy helps coordinate the relevant actions, responsibilities and measures. It does not replace a formal psychosocial hazard identification, risk assessment and control process, but it lets you manage the risk proactively rather than react to its consequences after they surface — often alongside targeted psychosocial risk programs.
How HSG builds your wellbeing strategy
Our strategy process uses two proprietary frameworks, each developed and refined through more than two decades of delivery in Australian workplaces. The Seven Pillars of Personal Health maps individual wellbeing across seven pillars, from mental and physical health to self-fulfilment. The Seven Pillars of Business Health maps organisational wellbeing across systems and culture. The strategy is built in four stages:
Stage 1: Assessment of workforce needs
We gather insights through employee surveys, focus groups, policy reviews, health and safety metrics, and discussions with key stakeholders, ensuring broad representation from HR, WHS, leaders, and employees.
Stage 2: Design of a tailored plan
Based on the assessment findings, we co-design a targeted wellbeing strategy aligned with your organisational goals. This stage confirms priorities with stakeholders, sets clear objectives, and determines which programs and services will have the greatest impact.
Stage 3: Implementation of targeted programs
We deliver the programs, training, and initiatives identified in the strategy, coordinating with internal project sponsors and managers. This stage often includes staff communications, training rollouts, and support for leadership and teams throughout.
Stage 4: Ongoing evaluation and adjustment
Continuous improvement is supported through regular data collection, feedback loops, and stakeholder engagement. We track progress against pre-agreed metrics and refine the approach to ensure measurable outcomes and sustained success.
The frameworks behind your strategy
The Seven Pillars of Personal Health
HSG’s Seven Pillars of Personal Health is a holistic framework that maps individual employee wellbeing across seven interconnected pillars: mental, emotional, physical, nutritional, social, and spiritual health, and self-fulfilment. We use it in the workforce needs assessment to highlight the areas needing the most support. If employees score lower on the mental and nutritional pillars, for example, we can prioritise targeted initiatives such as mental health workshops and healthy eating seminars in the program design, ensuring every element responds directly to the needs identified in your organisation.
The Seven Pillars of Business Health
The Seven Pillars of Business Health is HSG’s organisational framework, drawn from our Culture of Wellness© program. Where the personal health framework focuses on what individuals need to thrive, the business health framework examines the organisational conditions that help or hinder collective performance.
The Seven Pillars of Business Health explained
Morale
The overall sense of confidence, enthusiasm, and satisfaction in the workforce.
Attitude
The mindset and outlook employees bring to their work and their colleagues.
Performance
The capacity of individuals and teams to deliver consistently and sustainably.
Purpose
The degree to which employees feel connected to the organisation’s mission and their own role within it.
Relationships
The quality of interpersonal connection across teams, between managers and staff, and across the organisation.
Support
The systems, structures, and leadership behaviours that help people do their best work.
Acceptance & Inclusion
A culture in which diversity of background, experience and perspective is genuinely valued, with active practices that ensure every person feels they belong and can contribute fully.
The Culture of Wellness© approach
HSG’s Culture of Wellness© methodology takes a top-down approach, working with senior leaders to improve leadership capability, create positive cultural norms, and build systems that support wellbeing as a core value. When wellbeing is part of how leaders act and how decisions are made, the effect endures. When it is reduced to a list of activities, the effect fades once those activities stop.
A custom strategy blends both: building individual capability through programs and services, and organisational capability through leadership training and organisational culture change work.
What your strategy can cover
A custom wellbeing strategy draws on HSG’s full-service suite across four integrated pillars. Your specific combination depends on the workforce needs assessment and context review.
Workplace mental health & resilience
Support employees in managing pressure, building resilience, and strengthening psychological safety.
Leadership development & manager capability
Equip managers with practical skills to lead people, navigate difficult conversations and support healthy team performance across onsite, remote and hybrid teams.
Physical wellbeing, ergonomics & corporate massage
Help reduce daily physical strain through ergonomics, movement, corporate massage, fitness, yoga and broader corporate health programs.
Workplace culture, connection & team engagement
Strengthen communication, belonging, and collaboration across on-site, hybrid, and distributed teams.
Ready to build an ongoing program across these areas? Workplace wellness programs
What you’ll have at the end of the strategy process
A strategy engagement produces concrete deliverables you can put in front of leadership:
- A workforce needs report: findings from surveys, focus groups and data review, with priorities identified
- A documented wellbeing strategy: objectives, recommended programs and leadership actions aligned with your organisational goals
- An implementation roadmap: a prioritised delivery schedule with responsibilities identified
- A measurement framework: agreed indicators and a reporting approach for tracking progress
Once delivery begins, HSG reports on measures such as participation and attendance, staff feedback and reported usefulness, and progress against the agreed objectives. These support the outcomes the strategy is designed for: stronger psychosocial risk management, more coherent wellbeing investment, improved leadership capability and more credible reporting to executives.
The business case for a strategic approach
A strategic approach lets organisations manage risk proactively rather than react to consequences. The evidence for sustained investment is well established: Australian research has found that for every $1 invested in effective workplace mental health initiatives, organisations see an average return of $2.30 through reduced absenteeism, presenteeism and compensation claims (PwC, Creating a Mentally Healthy Workplace, 2014, with Beyond Blue and the Mentally Healthy Workplace Alliance). That finding applies to effective initiatives generally — the role of a custom strategy is to help you select, coordinate and evaluate initiatives against your own workforce’s needs, rather than assuming one approach suits every workplace.
Organisations that treat wellbeing as a constant, integrated capability tend to outperform those that treat it as a short-term measure. The strategy engagement is where that change starts.
Strategy in action: Australian Volunteers International
Industry: Not-for-profit / International development
Challenge: A globally distributed team needed shared access to wellbeing support, including team members who could not attend live sessions.
What HSG delivered: A stress and resilience program delivered via live video to the whole team across multiple countries and time zones, with a recording made available for those unable to attend at the scheduled time.
Outcome: Whole-of-team participation across regions, with on-demand access extending reach beyond the live session.
It was really nice to be able to have all our team from all over the world join the session with our facilitator for a Stress/Resilience presentation via Zoom, and to be able to make it available for those who were unable to join us at the time via a recording.
The team at Holistic Services Group were very helpful and considerate to our needs and what we wanted out of the presentation and organised everything for us very smoothly!
Stella Vovos
Australian Volunteers International
What organisations are saying
HSG has done it again!
Having worked with HSG before I had high expectations of what I knew they could deliver and they didn’t disappoint! We put on a couple of wellness webinars for our staff and each was organised promptly, with full details and without any stone left unturned. Lisa was a fabulous help and always responded to my queries in a quick and very friendly manner. Even when one webinar didn’t quite go to plan she was quick to respond and help smooth things over which just further increased my appreciation of her and the wider HSG team. 10/10 service and would definitely recommend! A big thank you to everyone involved, including Merv and Leonie for the knowledge and tips they shared, and the general friendliness that was felt from the entire HSG team. Great job as always!
Penny Sandercock
Domain Group, Sydney NSW
Your amazing experience and extensive knowledge was so insightful. I received much feedback from participants that they benefited a lot from your training session. I appreciate your efforts to prepare for such an excellent delivery.
Lin Han
Apple
We partnered with Holistic Services Group to deliver resilience sessions tailored for both our leaders and general staff. Mae worked closely with us to identify the training that best suited our needs, and Dana facilitated the sessions on-site with professionalism and expertise. Both Mae and Dana were knowledgeable, engaging, and a pleasure to work with. I highly recommend Holistic Services Group for their exceptional team and comprehensive range of topics.
Peter J
St Vincent’s
Frequently asked questions
The Annual Wellbeing Program is the delivery method. It schedules sessions and services over 12 months. The Custom Workplace Wellbeing Strategy begins with assessment, design, and planning. This determines what your program should contain and why. For organisations that need a tailored approach based on data and analysis, the strategy engagement is the best place to start. The annual program then delivers what the strategy recommends.
HSG uses two proprietary frameworks: the Seven Pillars of Personal Health and the Seven Pillars of Business Health. The first maps employee wellbeing across seven pillars, from mental and physical health to self-fulfilment. The second maps the organisational conditions that affect wellbeing across seven pillars, from morale to acceptance and inclusion. Both are used in the workforce needs assessment and organisational context review, ensuring the strategy addresses individual and systemic factors.
The initial assessment and strategy design phase usually takes four to six weeks. Timing depends on your organisation’s size and the complexity of workforce data. Implementation starts once the strategy is agreed on. HSG oversees the full process—from your first consultation to delivery and evaluation.
Yes. Australia’s updated Work Health and Safety regulations now require employers to proactively identify and manage psychosocial hazards in the workplace. A custom wellbeing strategy can form part of your documented psychosocial risk management approach, covering hazard identification, control measures, leadership capability, and ongoing monitoring. We recommend discussing your specific compliance context with your WHS adviser to ensure the strategy meets your legal obligations.
Yes. HSG has delivered wellbeing strategies and programs for organisations with distributed workforces across multiple Australian states and territories, as well as across the Asia-Pacific region. Our national network of more than 1,200 practitioners and our online delivery capability mean we can reach every employee regardless of location.
Investment varies depending on the scope of the assessment, your organisation’s size, and the program elements recommended by the strategy. HSG will provide a detailed, tailored proposal following an initial consultation. Organisations that undertake a strategy engagement typically find that a clear, justified plan makes it significantly easier to secure internal budget approval.
A custom workplace wellbeing strategy is a structured, evidence-based plan. It identifies what your workforce needs to thrive and shows the programs, services, and leadership actions needed over time. The strategy is built from your organisation’s context, workforce data, and goals—not from a generic template.
Related programs
The strategy determines your priorities and creates the plan; these programs are how it gets delivered.
Annual Wellbeing Program
The structured 12-month delivery vehicle for what your strategy recommends.
The Impact Program
HSG’s flagship offer for organisations committing to multi-year cultural change.
Start the conversation about your wellbeing strategy
If your organisation is ready to move from ad hoc wellbeing activities to a structured, evidence-informed strategy, we’d like to hear about your situation. The first conversation is a no-obligation discussion with a senior HSG adviser.
Call us on 1300 889 073 or enquire below.
